Professional and Technical Writing/Glossary

Advisers - people that gather detailed information and provide information to decision makers.

Brainstorming - generating ideas as quickly as possible, withholding evaluation of those ideas until later.

Complex Audience - the diverse group of people who may read your writing from different perspectives.

Copyright Law - set of laws that determine whether you can use other people's writing without their permission.

Cover Letter - a letter written to an employer that briefly states why a job applicant should be considered for a position. Cover letters should be written specifically for the job one is applying for.

Cluster Sketch - writing your overall topic in the center of a page and then adding subtopics, joining them to the main topic or each other.

Decision Makers - people in an organization that determine what the company will do sometime in the future.

Executive Summary - a brief summary at the beginning of a report that gives only the most important information to decision makers. Also called an abstract.

Freewriting - writing new ideas down in complete sentences without stopping so that new ideas continue to flow.

Future Readers - people who will read your writing/s sometime in the future.

Implementers - people in an organization who carry out the decisions made by the decision makers.

Job Search Websites - online sites in which you can post your resume and also find/contact potential employers that have information posted. Such sites include Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com, Theladders.com, Jobdig.com, Hotjobs.yahoo.com, and other job search websites.

Letter - a written communication written to someone outside of the organization.

Memo - short for memorandum, a brief written communication that follows a format specific to the company in which it was written. Memos are written from someone within an organization to others inside the organization.

Outline - a brief description of the main points or sections of a written document that make it more navigable and organized.

PAR Statement - a key piece of a cover letter that explains a problem one has experienced, the action he/she took to solve the problem, and the resolution that resulted from the actions. The PAR Statement is usually located in the second paragraph of a cover letter, and it should be relative to the position you are applying for.

Phantom Readers - people who will read your writing even though you did not intend for them to read it.

Portable Document Format (PDF) - the preferred form of which a document should be exchanged online. This format was created by Adobe systems, and it is very transportable across different computer platforms.

Professional Writing - writing that takes place in the workplace that is persuasive, legally binding, and may address complex audiences.

Proposal - a document that is supposed to persuade the potential buyer.

Résumé - a document containing a summary of one's education, professional experience, and job qualifications. Résumés should be limited to one page, unless one is applying for a position as a senior executive.

Skills Résumé - a résumé where the applicant's accomplishments and experience are consolidated in a section at the beginning of the résumé

Stakeholders - people inside and outside of an organization that your writing may affect.

Superstructures - an agreed upon format for organizing documents that are frequently used in the workplace.

Technical Writing - writing that conveys information that is difficult to understand in a clear, concise, correct, and compelling manner.

Usability - the ease to which a reader can understand a written communication to perform their specific task.

Typographic Contrast - Using different sizes and weights of fonts to create a distinct difference between elements. This can be used best to create an effective difference between headings and body text.

White Space - Empty space used in a document to spread out information.